Content

• To step
• Part 1 of 3: The Noble Eightfold Path
• Part 2 of 3: Achieving Nirvana in your daily life
• Part 3 of 3: The Four Noble Truths
• Tips

The Four Noble Truths are the very essence of Buddhism and provide a plan to remedy all the suffering that human beings endure. These truths hold that life is filled with different kinds of suffering; suffering always has a cause and an end; you reach Nirvana when you know how to end suffering. The Noble Eightfold Path shows the steps you must take to reach Nirvana in your life. The Four Noble Truths describe disease in human experience, and the Noble Eightfold Path is the recipe for healing. Understanding the truths and traveling along the path will lead to peace and happiness in life.

To step

Part 1 of 3: The Noble Eightfold Path

1. Meditate regularly. Meditation is the key to changing the way your mind works and will enable you to walk the path toward Nirvana. It should be part of your everyday life. While you can learn to meditate on your own, a teacher can help and guide you in applying the correct techniques. You can meditate on your own, but it makes sense to meditate with others and under the guidance of a teacher.
   • You cannot walk the path without meditating. Meditation will help you better understand yourself and the world.
2. Get the right picture. Buddhist teaching (i.e. the Four Noble Truths) is the lens through which you view the world. If you are unable to accept the teachings, you will not be able to follow the other steps on the path. A correct view and understanding are the basis of the path. See the world as it really is and not as you would like it to be. You try to understand reality as objectively as possible. For this you have to research, study and learn about reality.
   • The Four Noble Truths are the basis of the correct understanding. You have to believe that those truths describe things as they really are.
   • Nothing is perfect or permanent. Think critically about situations instead of coloring them with your own personal feelings, desires, and concerns.
3. Have the right intentions. Commit to developing an attitude that aligns with your belief system. Act as if all life is equal and deserves to be treated with compassion and love. This applies to yourself as well as to others. Reject thoughts that are selfish, violent, and hateful.Love and non-violence should be the rule.
   • Show respect for all living things (plants, animals and humans) regardless of their status. For example, you should treat a rich person and a poor person with the same respect. People of any life background, age group, race, ethnicity or economic status should all be treated equally.
4. Speak the right words. The third step is correct speaking. If you practice speaking correctly, you will not lie, you will not speak evil, you will not gossip, or you will not speak aggressively. Instead, speak kind and truthful words. Your words should affirm and elevate others. It's also important to know when to shut up and hold back your words.
   • Speaking correctly is something you practice every day.
5. Act the right way. Your actions flow from what is in your heart and in your mind. Treat yourself and other people well. Do not destroy life or steal. Live a peaceful life and help other people to live peaceful lives too. Be honest when you interact with other people. For example, you shouldn't cheat or lie to get ahead or to get something you want.
   • Your presence and activities should be positive and improve the lives of other people and society.
6. Choose a good profession. Choose a profession that is in line with your beliefs. Do not do work that harms other people, that involves killing animals, or that involves deception. Selling weapons or drugs or working in a slaughterhouse are not acceptable professions. Whatever type of work you choose, you must perform it with integrity.
   • For example, if you are a seller, you shouldn't use cheats or lies to get people to buy your product.
7. Make an effort. If you really do your best in everything you do, it will lead to success. Get rid of negative thoughts and focus on positive thinking. Be enthusiastic about whatever you do (eg school, career, friendships, hobbies, etc.). You need to practice consistently having positive thoughts because this doesn't always come naturally. This will prepare your mind for the practice of mindfulness. The four principles of the right effort are:
   • Prevent malicious and unhealthy conditions (sensory desire, ill will, worries, doubts, restlessness) from developing.
   • Remove the evil and unhealthy conditions that have already arisen by combating them with good thoughts, turning your attention to something else, or confronting the thought and examining the source of the thought.
   • Produce a good and healthy state of consciousness.
   • Maintain and perfect this good and healthy state of consciousness.
8. Practice mindfulness. Mindfulness makes it possible to see reality as it really is. The four fundamentals of mindfulness are: contemplation of body, feelings, moods and phenomena. When you are mindful, you live in the moment and you are open to the entire experience. You focus on your current situation, not on the future or the past. Pay attention to your body, your feelings, your thoughts, your ideas and everything around you.
   • Living in the present frees you from desires about your future and past.
   • Mindfulness also means paying attention to other people's feelings, emotions and bodies.
9. Focus your mind. Proper concentration is the ability to focus your mind on a single object and not be distracted by outside influences. As you practice the other parts of the path, your mind learns to focus. Your mind will be focused and not filled with stress and anxiety. You will have a good relationship with yourself and the world. The right concentration allows you to see something clearly, as it really is.
   • Concentration is like mindfulness, but when you concentrate, you are not so aware of all the different sensations and feelings. For example, if you focus on an exam, you are only focused on the exam. If you practiced mindfulness during that exam, you would notice how you feel about taking the exam, how the other people around you behave, or how you sit.

Part 2 of 3: Achieving Nirvana in your daily life

1. Practice Loving-Kindness (Metta Bhavana). Metta means (unromantic) love and kindness. It is a feeling that comes from your heart, and it must be cultivated and practiced. It is usually practiced in five stages. If you are a beginner, try to stay for five minutes at each stage.
   • Phase 1- Feel Metta for yourself. Focus on feelings of peace, tranquility, strength and confidence. You can repeat the phrase "May I be good and happy" to yourself.
   • Phase 2- Think of a friend and all the things you like about them. Repeat the phrase "Let him / her go well; let he / she be happy ".
   • Phase 3- Think about someone you are neutral about. You don't love that person, but you don't hate him or her either. Think about that person's humanity and extend your Metta feelings to that person.
   • Phase 4- Think about someone you don't like at all. Instead of thinking about why you don't like that person and having hateful thoughts about it, send your Metta feelings to him / her.
   • Phase 5- In this final phase you think about everyone, including yourself. Send Metta to all people, to your city, your neighborhood, your country and the whole world.
2. Practice mindful breathing. Through this form of meditation you can learn to concentrate and focus your thoughts. With this form of meditation you learn to practice mindfulness, you learn to relax and to rid yourself of fear. Find a comfortable sitting position. Your spine should be straight and relaxed. Your shoulders should be relaxed and pulled back and down a bit. Rest your hands on a pillow or place them in your lap. Once you have found the right posture, start going through the different stages. Each phase should last at least 5 minutes.
   • Phase 1- In your mind count (inhale, 1, exhale, inhale 2, exhale, etc.) after each inhalation, until you reach 10. Then start over. Focus on the feeling of inhaling and exhaling. Thoughts will come to you. Just bring your thoughts back to your breath every time.
   • Phase 2- Continue in cycles of 10 breaths, but this time count before you inhale (so: 1, inhale, exhale, 2, inhale, exhale, 3, etc.). Concentrate on the sensations you have when you breathe in.
   • Phase 3- Breathe in and out without counting. Try to think of your breathing as a continuous process, rather than just inhaling and exhaling.
   • Phase 4- Your focus should now be on feeling your breath as it enters and leaves your body. You can feel your breath pass through your nostrils or past your lips.
3. Affirm and elevate others. The ultimate goal of Buddhism is to achieve inner peace and then share that experience with those around you. Achieving Nirvana is not only for your benefit, but also for that of the world around you. It is important to always be a source of encouragement and support for others. It's as easy and simple as giving someone a hug when they feel down. If someone is important to you or is doing something nice for you, let that person know how you feel. Let people know that you are grateful and that you appreciate them. If someone is having a bad day, have a listening ear.
4. Treat people with compassion. Your happiness is directly related to the happiness of others. Showing compassion promotes happiness for everyone. You can practice compassion in many ways:
   • Turn off your phone or put it away when you spend time with friends and family.
   • Make eye contact when someone is talking to you and listen without interrupting.
   • Volunteer.
   • Keep the door open for others.
   • Be empathetic towards people. For example, if someone is upset, acknowledge their problem and try to understand why that person is upset. Ask what you can do to help. Listen and pay attention to their feelings.
5. Be mindful. When you practice mindfulness, you pay close attention to how you think and how you feel in the present moment. Mindfulness is not only a meditation technique, but also intended to be applied in your daily life. For example, you can be mindful during dinner, in the shower or when you get dressed in the morning. Start by choosing an activity and then focus on the feelings in your body and your breathing as you go.
   • If you want to practice mindfulness while eating, focus on the taste, texture, and smell of the foods you eat.
   • When washing dishes, pay attention to the temperature of the water, how your hands feel while washing the dishes, and how the water feels while you rinse a cup or a plate.
   • Instead of listening to music or TV while getting dressed in the morning, do it in silence. Pay attention to how you feel. Were you tired or well rested when you woke up? How does your body feel while getting dressed or showering?

Part 3 of 3: The Four Noble Truths

1. Identify the suffering. Buddha describes suffering in a different way from how people usually think about it. Suffering is inevitable and part of life. Dukkha is the truth that everything, all of life, is suffering. The word suffering is usually used to describe things like illness, aging, accidents, or physical and emotional pain. Yet Buddha considers desires (especially unfulfilled desires) and needs also as suffering. These two things are considered the roots of suffering, because man is seldom satisfied or satisfied. Once a desire is fulfilled, a new desire is immediately created. This is a vicious cycle.
   • Dukkha means "that which is difficult to bear". Suffering is a wide spectrum and includes things big and small.
2. Determine the cause of the suffering. Desire and ignorance are the root of suffering. Your unfulfilled wishes are the worst kind of suffering. For example, if you are sick, you suffer. While you are sick, you long to be healthy. Your unfulfilled desire to be healthy is a greater form of suffering than just being sick. Whenever you long for something that you cannot have - an opportunity, a person, or an achievement - you are subject to suffering.
   • The only guarantees in life are aging, illness and death.
   • Your desires will never be truly satisfied. Once you achieve something, or get what you want, you will begin to long for something else. Those constant desires keep you from achieving true happiness.
3. End the suffering in your life. Each of the four truths is a stepping stone. If all is suffering and suffering comes from your desires, then having no more desires is the only way to end the suffering. You have to believe that you don't have to suffer and that you have the ability to put the suffering in your life. To end the suffering in your life, you must change your perception and learn to control your desires.
   • Controlling your wants and desires will enable you to live in freedom and contentment.
4. Reach the end of suffering in your life. The end of suffering can be achieved by following the Noble Eightfold Path. Your path to Nirvana can be summed up in three ideas. First, you need to have the right intentions and mindset. Second, you must apply the right intentions in your daily life. Finally, you must understand true reality and have correct beliefs about all things.
   • The eightfold path can be divided into three categories: wisdom (right view, right intention), ethical behavior (right speech, right action, and right livelihood), and mental cultivation (right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration).
   • This path provides guidelines for everyday life.

Tips

• Reaching Nirvana is unlikely to be easy. It may take a while. Even if it seems impossible, keep trying and don't give up.
• You can practice Buddhism on your own, but you might also benefit from going to a temple and having a teacher. Do not rush to decide on a group or teacher. Always trust your own intuition and take your time. There are great teachers, but also some very unpleasant ones. Look on the internet at temple / group / teacher and see what comes up with the words controversy and cult. Do your homework.
• The eightfold path is not a linear path. It is a journey that you take every day.
• Your path to enlightenment will be different from others, just as each snowflake has a unique shape and twirls through the air in a unique way. Do the exercises that you enjoy doing / feel natural to you / that make you feel good.
• Try out different ways of meditating; they are simply different tools and methods that you can use on your spiritual path. You can then use a varied amount of tools at different times.
• Nirvana is achieved when the misconceptions about the way the self (and everything else) exists, disappear for good. There are many methods of achieving this. None is right or wrong, better or worse. Sometimes Nirvana arises spontaneously and sometimes it takes a lot of time and effort.
• Ultimately, it is intended that both the seeker and the sought-after Nirvana must be released.
• No one else knows your path (see the snowflake analogy above) but occasionally a teacher may tell you that you should move to another group. Most teachers / traditions / sects have a very strong attachment to their prescribed route to enlightenment, but at the same time, attachment to their own opinion / judgment is one of the major obstacles on the way to enlightenment. You should not lose sight of the irony of this during your trip.
• Practicing yourself is essential in achieving Nirvana. The role of a teacher is to help you grow and become spiritually autonomous. Their role is not to create dependence and regression to an infantile state, but this is very common.
• Find out what you like and do more of it.
• Go ahead, carry on and think about the benefits (even the slightest) that this path offers you and remember them. This way you will always stay motivated.
• When that comes your way, embrace doubt.